Syncronicity
by booknoodles
Summary: I wish this didn't need a summary. Gah. Sorry. I tried. Soul resonance! Blah.
1. Chapter 1

Please forgive me for my disjointed thoughts :3

I don't know why it is necessary to mention that I don't own Soul Eater.. I don't want to get in any trouble though, so there you go.

Please note that if I did own SE, Maka and Soul would be canon :3

Blair sniffs the milk carton suspiciously and listens to the indeterminate solids suspended in smelly liquid ominously clunking against the sides of the container. She wrinkles her nose and wordlessly places it back into the refrigerator. The oven timer indicates that she has fifteen minutes to get to her 11 PM shift at the cafe. _Wouldn't want to disappoint the regulars. Ahem. Regular, singular. Spirit. _

She poofs into her cat form and leaps onto the counter. Her ill-conceived jump leaves her scrabbling on the slick surface, and when her claws find no purchase, she continues to slide until she hits the edge of the sink and knocks over a row of empty cans and with an appalling "whoosh," a colossal pile of essay papers Maka had numerically ordered. Blair looks back nonchalantly and with a shrug, squeezes her lithe body through the open window.

Soul has been lying awake in bed since 10, listening to his meister shuffling papers in her room. After the rustling had stopped at 10:30, he began to feel less and less inclined to stay in bed. Besides, what kind of cool guy goes to sleep at 10? Hearing the clattering in the kitchen and needing an excuse to walk by Maka's room, he pads down the hallway towards her door at 10:45. _Ah. Cute. Pajamas. _She is still at her desk, but it doesn't look like she is getting much done. Her eyes are closed, her face is glued to her notebook and he can hear her quiet, even breathing from his place by her door.

He reluctantly backs out of her room, not wanting to relinquish the view. His dread of what undoubtedly awaits him in the kitchen finally overcomes his semi-voyeuristic urges, and he leaves to assess the crisis. He isn't disappointed. It is fractal chaos; papers are swirled all over the floor, and the week's recycling has toppled. He heaves a giant sigh and begins to pick up the pieces. _Not cool._

Maka awakens with a start when she hears her two roommates hissing at each other. She peels her face off her notebook and wobbles first into Soul's room to snatch his thick flannel robe, and then into the kitchen to see what is going on. She hears Soul's low sardonic voice and Blair's shrill retorts before she even sees the two. When she knocks lightly at the doorframe, they spin around to see her and finally shut up. All of Blair minus her perky endowments droops guiltily, and Soul mutters indistinctly and kicks at the linoleum.

"It's okay," Maka chirps. "I was going to make breakfast anyway."

"Were you writing on your face?"

"Ah shi-"

_Later._

"Come on Soul," Maka insists, delicately plucking at her weapon's sleeve. "We need to study."

"Oy, you don't even need to study," Soul grumps back at her. "I don't see why you're bothering. _I'm_ the one who's behind; I don't see why _you_ are in such a rush."

Maka just smiles and quietly tugs him down the corridor leading to the well-equipped library. Upon arriving, she begins to glance about furtively, fingering the strap of her leather bag. "Hm..Soul..why don't you go find us somewhere to sit?"

Soul smirks knowingly and saunters to a low traffic area near the back of the building whilst Maka stealthily begins to feed romance novels from her book bag into the bin labeled "Returns."

With a flushed face, she stiffly weaves through the aisles on her way over to Soul. It is late, and there is nary a student nor librarian's assistant in sight. He is sitting on the blue carpet in between the "Mc-Na" and the "Na-On" shelves. He grins wickedly when he sees her approach, and he straightens up from his casual slouch to razz her. "Was the librarian glad to see her smut safely returned?"

She slits her eyes and a heavy tome begins a lightning-quick path towards his vulnerable skull. His hands shoot up to defend himself, and she smacks his stomach instead. As he wheezes unintelligibly, she paws through her book bag for a pen.

"Makaaaa, seriously… can we have a break tonight? All this studying is not really for cool guys."

She studies him. His gaze is downcast, and she notices the darkness under his eyes and the droop of his shoulders.

"Yeah, we can take a break." Still looking down, he gives the synthetic blue fibers underneath him a crooked smile, which grows when she shoves him and lets him know with only a touch of humor in her voice that they will be working double time tomorrow.

They sit across from each other and let the comfortable silence that follows relax them. His detached expression is impenetrable, but his wavelength tentatively prods her own. He shares his quiet comfort, and her soul responds in kind without her conscious decision to do so.

Please review, complain, edit, do whatever you feel would improve this.. except I must mention that I cannot change many aspects of my "Spock-speak." It is the nature of the beast (i.e. myself.) I'll write more, regardless of whether or not it is desired by the FF community. Sorry -/-

From **booknoodles**: Tell me what to do please :3 Any help is both needed and encouraged.. Hehe :)


	2. Chapter 2

Soul is standing apathetically in front of the bulletin board as Maka sifts through the assignments.

"Soul…We haven't left Death City since you had that bad enchilada in Texas."

He groans. "Who puts summer squash in enchiladas anyway?"

She swivels away from the board to regard him seriously. He squints one eye at her and she is just starting in on him with her lecture about staying on par with their peers when Ox catches her eye as he is making his way towards the board. They grimace disgustedly at each other and after a final scowl at her, Ox begins to scan the board for tasks that suit his skill level. _Harvar doesn't seem to focus his attacks as well when we are indoors… I want to try a mission that-_his train of thought is entirely derailed as Maka bends over to tighten the buckle on her left boot.

Soul's flat expression does not change when he sees Ox studying his pigtailed meister's panties; however in seconds Ox's view up her skirt is blocked by an impassive Soul, who had sidestepped to block his vantage point. She pops back up abruptly, bumping into Soul, who does not move but instead narrows his eyes at Ox. The chastened boy turns back to face the board again and anxiously fiddles with his pillars of fail.

Unaware of the nonverbal confrontation, Maka grins and snatches the mission description that Ox was reaching for.

"MINE."

She tugs on Soul's sleeve and she marches him down the hallway while he wonders if she had even read the assignment. (She hadn't.)

_The next day, in Hanoi, Vietnam _

Maka is worrying the corners of a crisp map as she sits in the dim, unnatural light in the cabin of a 757 Boeing Twin-Jet Airliner. Shinigami-sama had scribbled circles and small, childish drawings of Soul and Maka in the space denoting their destination. _How are we going to get there? _She turns to ask Soul and smiles. He is compacted into two seats like an origami cricket. His closed eyes are smushed into the crook of his right arm, and he is partly hanging into the aisle. She considers his profile (she knows it by heart) with interest. _I can't blame him for sleeping.._. They had departed the previous day, and had been awake ever since. _Three in the morning had never agreed with him anyway_, she concedes. He twitches in his sleep, bringing her back to the present. He is drooling slightly (but hell, he does that when he is awake) and his shirt is pulled up, showing his pale, scarred torso and a virtually invisible line of fuzz. She whips her head around to check for witnesses. She can't remember ever having been so grateful for being on a red-eye flight. No one is awake to see her lightly tracing the thin hair on his stomach with her fingers.

Soul's eyes imperceptibly flicker behind their lids as he makes a valiant effort not to move. He can't spook her, his rare ivory billed woodpecker. He covets these moments in which she hasn't a clue in the world that he is carefully cataloguing her every move. He considers what would happen if he lost contact with her calloused, gentle fingers. He has never been as fearful in battle as he is right now on this airplane. His eyes are as tightly squeezed closed as he can manage. He is grateful to every higher being he can think of for his training with BlackStar, because the tension in his stomach is-"**Aaaaaaattention passengers!**"

_Damn. _They both think it so loudly that it reverberates along their shared wavelength. Maka's hand had already snapped back to her map at mach speed, and Soul has no viable option but to sit up, feigning grogginess. He tugs at his jeans and puts his hand into his pocket to rearrange himself.

"**Please fasten your seatbelts as we descend to our destination of Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi. The local time is 3:13 AM, and it is POURING out there, folks. Please enjoy your stay, and thank you for flying with Vietnam Air.**"

Feeling flushed, Maka bends over to reach their shared carry-on bag. Remaining upside down for longer than strictly necessary to justify her coloring, she feels around for the strap of the duffel bag. She sits up and hurriedly plops it into Soul's lap. She turns back to the window to hide her loss of composure, unmindful of her weapon's pained wheeze. The runway is deserted but for a solitary man from the ranks of the undead waving two fluorescent beacons. The relentless, torrential rain soaks them to the skin the moment they disembark from the plane.

_On the road again…_

"Where the hell are we now…?" With a significant degree of difficulty, Soul stopped the rented motorbike as they reached the swampy edge of a rice paddy. It was still dark, but Maka could just barely make out the glowing, bobbing souls of some shadowy figures in large hats working in the fields.


	3. No books?

**Author's note..I've been tired, okay? :P goodness. To be honest, I've had this part done since I published the last chapter, but I was feeling ambitious, and I thought I could add to it in a timely manner. Oops. Anyway, I figured I'd just submit this until I've gathered my scrambled thoughts. I know this is absurdly short [that's what she said. Not Maka though ;) anyway, please bear with me. If I get frustrated enough this could become pure smut and my plot will be naught but dust in the proverbial wind. Oh great. My author's note is nearly longer than this chapter. Ugh.]**

Maka casts one last wistful gaze in the direction they came from. The Temple of Literature isn't on their itinerary. She jumps off the back of the motorbike to let Soul climb off, and he does so slowly, avoiding the slick mud underfoot. The goop squelches when he lifts one shoe disgustedly. He isn't sure if it _This is why I am the weapon. I want to be carried. _He gives a low chuckle, causing to Maka tilt her head questioningly. Her curiosity quickly becomes a secondary issue as they hear violent rumbling and squelching.

Soul interrupts her thoughts. _Maka? _

_Hm? _She is impatient.

_Where did the workers go?_

She focuses on the dim field ahead and can no longer find the blobby silhouettes. She can see in the distance a faint glow. The light quickly comes trundling closer, and she simultaneously realizes that A: that is in fact a set of two lights, and B: she really wishes they had taken the later flight. _Looks like we disturbed someone. Something?_

"Soul…"

He unhesitatingly metamorphoses. She swings him around and slides her hand down his length. There really wasn't anything quite like holding him. He was the perfect weapon. His weight does not drag down her aerial fighting style, and the unevenly balanced nature of a scythe gives her swings considerable momentum. She will not admit to how gleeful she is that no one else can wield him, but her thrill at BlackStar's previous failure was ill-disguised along their shared wavelength.

The technician peers at the image of her loyal weapon in the blade. "Ready, Soul?"

He nods, forgetting that he is a length of inflexible metal. _She can't let go of me now_... "Yeah."

"Let's go!" she darts forward in zigzagged lines (it is a helpful technique she picked up by training with a compulsive gun wielder) and leaps and slides and skids over the sodden, rolling surface.

The noise and lights overcome the minimum threshold for precise perception, and she realizes that the lights are attached to a tractor. A gigantic tractor. The rumbling emanates from the fiercely combustive engine which Maka doubts conforms to environmental codes. For a sense of scale, she estimates that the headlights are at her eye level. The behemoth continues forward, and she abruptly finds herself turning and galloping in the same direction as the vehicle. She pauses, recalling Shinigami-sama's directions. '_There's something kooky in the rural areas surrounding Hanoi. Harvesters are going missing right and left, and we fear their souls have been consumed by a pre-kishin.'_ She isn't sure if she is chasing the tractor or if it is chasing her. For that matter, she isn't certain if it is even what they are supposed to eliminate until a bomb arcs over the back of the truck.

Undeterred, she dodges it and sprints faster to leap onto the back of the vehicle. Soul tries to quell his panic before Maka picks up on it. She tends to get overwhelmed, and it isn't going to help if she notices his fear. She clambers over the seat and stops. There isn't any_one_ to attack. She regroups for a moment.

_Soul. We could try purifying it with Demon Hunter. _

Sid-sensei is waiting for them at the airport. His massive bulk and blue pigmentation are drawing suspicious stares from the security guards. _I won't crush them, because that was not the kind of man I was. _The scent of something decadent with cinnamon wafts past, and he decides that this is what his expense account is there for. His discretionary funds were rarely used, since there were already separate accounts allocated for armament and business travel. He wonders absently if he remembered to take the Bowie knife out of his sock. He lumbers off, and people skitter out of his way like the waters of the Red Sea (ah, if those waters were fearful for their structural integrity, this analogy would fit perfectly.)


	4. Chapter 4

Fumbling with his seatbelt, Soul struggled to remove his jacket. "Why couldn't we have just flown there ourselves?"

Maka is reading a catalogue that she pulled from the seat pocket in front of her. "Oy, look at these-" She waves the magazine in front of his face.

"Where the hell would they go..." he sighs distractedly. LED-spangled garden gnomes. They don't have a garden (or live even remotely close to one, for that matter.) His efforts are concentrated upon keeping his eyes open. He isn't sure if he can handle another tense, 12 hours waiting for her timid hands on his skin. Maka isn't sure if she can wait for him to go to sleep. Her eyes dart to a textbook, and she decides with an ironic smile that even if a Maka-chop might earn Soul fifteen minutes of unconsciousness, it isn't worth the 11.75 hours of bitching she'll have to listen to afterward.

Sid-sensei is several rows back, listening to the in-flight radio and knitting a blue afghan. Soul peers around his seat to eyeball the blue man. "Maka..." She looks up from a Snuggie size chart with a quizzical expression. Having her full attention flusters him for a moment. She's the only person in the world who gives a damn what he's thinking, and he can't even look at her. He stares up and to the right as he intones his complaints about mass transit, their chaperone, and the time difference. She watches him and inwardly notes that she couldn't agree more. She hasn't seen him look fully rested in over a month. He can feel her uneasiness and finally looks at her. "…I'll go to sleep." She smiles her sparkling Maka smile, and he hastily looks away again.

They didn't even spend a full day in Hanoi, but he doubts he'll be able to relax until they are sequestered in their apartment. Their apartment. He enjoys that distinction far more than he deserves to. The weapon and his meister were automatically signed up for joint housing, but neither of them could honestly say they resented the system.

Unlike their previous flight, they only have two seats in their row. Soul leans back into his spongy vinyl seat. He's wondering why the wallpaper pattern looks blurry and doubled when he genuinely falls asleep. Maka is reading her textbook when she hears his breathing slow. Shaking her head to dispel thoughts of exploiting his prone figure, she returns her focus to _Weapon Physiology: A Lab Based Approach._

He wakes up with an erection.

It's not that he's surprised, exactly. It's something along the lines of panic. He's not sure how long he has had a gigantic _..Is it gigantic? This is no time for modesty. It's freakin' obvious! _He's afraid to open his eyes. He sits with harrowing thoughts hovering in his periphery while he struggles to focus on unsexy things. His issue, he observes with regret, is more biological than psychological, and he concedes defeat. No matter how many times he returns to the hideous visual memory of walking in on Stein and Spirit playing with each other, this is the raging, uncomfortable "just woke up" sort of deal that cannot simply be forcibly dismissed like the ones he gets when he sits oddly or sees a sexual movie scene. This is on the same level as his "thinking too carefully about Maka's underthings while folding laundry" type of erection, and it's not going anywhere any time soon. He peers surreptitiously over the edge of his fluffy seat, and is relieved to note that her eyes are closed. He cautiously unbuckles himself and reaches under his seat for a blanket.

Maka is tired. She hasn't slept in two days, and she's fairly certain that if she doesn't boil her clothes when she gets home, the microbes inhabiting them will probably propel her sodden muddy uniform to the washing machine. She looks over at her trusting, vulnerable companion. (Oh, how she wishes she deserved that trust. The sneaky groping she occasionally indulged in brought pangs from her conscience.) She straightened the wrinkled front panels of his jacket. Soul is noticeably cleaner than she is, and thusly received fewer dirty looks in the security line at the airport. Tugging remorsefully at her muddied attire, she notices Soul's pale lips moving in his sleep. Carefully leaning over the angular plastic armrest, she haltingly slides her hand along his right jaw and stops when her fingers touch his ear. She turned his head to face her and kisses his full lips. They are smooth and warm, and when she closes her eyes she can imagine her wishes are mutual. She presses harder and she soon can feel the jagged edges of his teeth as his lips part slightly. He stirs and to her bafflement returns the pressure encouragingly.

Soul simply cannot evaluate the incoming data quickly enough. He thinks that if opens his eyes, either she will fly back to her prim station by the window as if she hadn't been infinitesimally close moments ago, or he will discover that he is still dreaming. Neither option appeals to him, but when she presses into him, the feeling of her soft face half touching his and her silky, tentative lips breaks his control. He pushes up, needing to feel more. She strokes his cheek with her thumb and nibbles his bottom lip. His mind is blank. The pretense of unconsciousness will no longer hold, and he is becoming increasingly aware of the armrest digging into his stomach. He pushes his forehead into hers and kisses her again, but lightly on her cheek. He retreats to his previous seated position and snakes his hand over the armrest to grab her small sweaty hand.


	5. Chapter 5

**Oh Soul, it's so long!**

**No, wink wink, nudge nudge, casual looks and glances, not his you-know-what, if you know what I mean. (Do I even know what I mean?) I was referring to the chapter. Ahem. (Yes, I know what I mean. Yep. Anyhoo...)**

**1,117 words, _not_ including my not-so-brief author's note right here. Aren't you proud of me? I'm fairly certain this is my longest chapter yet...Or close to it. **

"You guys are quiet..."

"Why are you even here?"

"Liability."

_This is an insult to my intelligence. _  
"Yeah? Well I am liable to kick Spirit's ass next time I see him."

Finally breaking her stunned silence, Maka looks up at her gigantic blue teacher in the front seat and mutters "Thank you very much for ensuring that we made it home. We can take it from here." She moves to open the car door and laughs. "Soul, you're sitting on my coat." She shoves him over a bit and he flops onto his side and doesn't move until she pokes his side. He grins his sharky grin and drools a bit. Things feel normal.

Soul paws through the pockets of their carry-on bag for their keys as they stumble out of the giant's car and make their way up the stairs to their apartment. Their apartment is treacherously dark as Soul opens the door and pats the wall for the light switch.

Maka pushes past him and wobbles to the large, fluffy sofa. She lands face first on a cushion. He wanders in after her and smirks. She's dirty and disheveled, and her clunky booted feet are hanging over the edge of the couch. He strides to her side and kneels after tearing off the cushions behind her to make more room.

_What is he doing…? _She smiles into her pillow and doesn't look at him.

He grimaces at her greyed gloves. Tugging at the tip of each finger, he removes the heavily soiled accessories one by one, and on the floor they moves down to her feet and patiently unbuckles one scuffed boot, and then the next, and pulls them off one at a time. He finds small pink socks underneath and he feels something in his heart leap inexplicably. His meister notices his pause, and peels her face up to analyze the situation. Soul ignores her gaze and delicately removes one sock at a time, and drops them into the growing pile of her gross clothing. Soul moves back up from her shoes to kneel by her side. He pushes her onto her right shoulder and pulls her arm out of her sleeve. He rolls her over and does the same on the left side. The jacket comes off. _Gah!_

"...?" Maka asks into her pillow.

"Do you want your sweater on?"

"..."

"All right then."

She can hear him humming something uncharacteristically jaunty in his head through their wavelength. She sighs into the much abused pillow. He rolls her small yellow sweater vest until it is under her arms. He holds her around her stomach and pulls it up over her head and through her arms, dropping her unceremoniously after he finishes.

"Oi... Maka...Your shirt sleeves are muddy."

"..."

He allows himself a half smile. "Well."

He rolls her over onto her back, and she smiles uncertainly up at him.  
"There's something underneath it..." she reassures him. (And possibly herself as well.)

He loosens and removes her emerald tie, but doesn't relinquish it to the pile. Her wavelength gives him zero information. To have unfiltered thoughts pried open and analyzed against your will or without your knowledge is akin to physical violation. Their bond, however, is quite consensual, and they usually let each other in. She's blocking him right now. It isn't abnormal. She puts up a barrier when she's doing anything private. She also does it during exams, to his vexation. That aside, he understands her need for privacy at times. At this moment, however, he would appreciate some feedback.  
_What if this isn't okay with her...is she just going along with it because she doesn't want to say no? She hasn't been afraid to say no before... _

"You okay?" he mumbles, looking down at her tie. His facial expression would reveal little beyond, perhaps, a hint of arrogance (at least to someone unfamiliar with him.) Maka reaches down and unbuttons her shirt, and permits Soul to pull her arms through.. She knows he is not completely sure of himself, nor is he even remotely convinced that he is a cool guy. He isn't fooling his attentive meister, who reaches out and grabs his white hand. She pets the soft, very slightly fuzzy top of his hand with her thumb. She shifts so suddenly that Soul almost falls on his butt. She wraps one arm around his shoulder and pulls him a bit closer, patting the space in front of her with her other hand. He hesitantly climbs up to join her and lies with his head about 7 inches away her chest. He's becoming hyperaware of the space (Is it too close? Too far?) She squiggles closer to him and pushes her chin into the top of his head.

They wake up with all of their angles perfectly complemented by each other. It is sticky-warm and dark, and Soul looks back at her to confirm with great pleasure that he hasn't fallen asleep with Black Star again. Maka wakes up when she feels him stirring, and wraps her arm around his chest with the inside of her elbow resting on his ribs.

"School?"

"Saturday."

"Mm."

He rolls onto his stomach, dragging her hand with him, and falls back asleep. Maka rests her face on his back and stares at her current novel, which is resting tantalizingly out of her reach on the coffee table. Blair creeps in on little fog feet and mouths something Maka doesn't catch. The magical cat rolls her eyes and points at Soul, and makes a sleepy gesture. Maka nods, pulling him slightly closer. It isn't the first time they've woken up this way; it would be difficult to share late night movie sessions regularly without falling asleep at least once. Or twice. Either way, it isn't a novelty to Blair and she goes on her merry way, with Maka silently entreating Blair's retreating, barely covered backside to give her the book on the table.  
A thought from nowhere interrupts her gaze.

_Oi, Maka._

_Hmm?_

_You're making noises in your brain. _

She narrows her eyes and roughly reaches over him to grab her book.  
He cowers to protect his spiky head, but she just pushes him off the sofa.  
_...It's cold now. :(_


	6. No Rest for the Wicked

_Sorry it took so long~_

_Credits go to Bones and Atsushi Okubo, Funimation, Square Enix and everyone else involved. I'm too lazy to check that nothing was changed when I transferred the file. Sorry~.. again.. OTL I hope everyone ignores my rambling. It's another long one. (Ooooh~ ... no I just meant the chapter. It's relatively long given my track record. Sorry. Again. Dammit.)_

Three hours of listening to a lesson of biomechanics bring darkness and swirling indistinct shapes behind Soul's eyelids, which flutter and open as he realizes that he is drooling on his recently laundered sleeve. Maka watches with a grin and wonders if she could suggest (with some level of tact) that he wear a plastic poncho to class. His snarky reply resounds in her head. _It's too late to think of a nice way to ask_. She sticks out her tongue at him. _Smartass. _He tilts his head up to look at her, and gives her the most beatific of expressions he is capable of, as if to ask "Why on Earth would you question the wisdom of my ass?"

Maka shakes her head and tries not to laugh. She sobers quickly when she remembers that they have a lesson later. Neither of them is in fighting shape, and yet she can't help but reprimand herself for wanting to skip a practice fight. Her inner Spartan student reminds her rather adamantly that they need more practice. She acknowledges it and wavers between her options. _No. We're going home._ _It's not like I can guarantee he will be getting any sleep later. _She looks down, and her scruffy bangs cover her uncertain eyes as she transcribes the arcane mathematical symbols on the board into her little spiral schedule book to review later. The room begins to shift from an apathetically silent vacuum of glassy-eyed students into a roaring mass of gossip and shuffling notebooks. _I must have missed the dismissal signal. _She nudges her partner's shoulder lightly. _It's time to go. _

He blinks groggily and rises without a word. He rubs his head carelessly and his flattened spikes come back to life. Soul hops onto his desk, slides over it and grabs her books—_like the cool guy I want to be_—and listens for her steps following him out of Shibusen and into the dark, windless city.

Soul shifts in his tangled red sheets and in one abrupt movement launches himself off his queen sized bed and into a nearby chair. His glowing red clock leers at him, and he stares at it until the numbers blur. He can't believe this is happening. He can't remember the last time he's been this tired. He can, however, with a hard-earned modicum of confidence, admit to himself that he is one lovesick bastard. It's the least cool thing he's ever felt, if he is completely honest. It's one thing to harbor a crush on your roommate, and it _might_ not be that catastrophic to be in love with your best friend and partner, but to be kept from sleeping by unrequited affection is something he would laugh at anyone else for.

While he is on this train of brutally candid thought, he finds it worthwhile to take into consideration the unrequited boner that is eagerly pressing into his boxers. Mr. Happy is definitely not helping him sleep either.

Imagery from the last time he and Maka had slept together on the sofa continuously flash through his mind. He had undressed her—_mostly_—and she had let him—_mostly—_andwould he have removed her shirt—_for the love of all things cool and covered in teddy bears he would have in an instan_t—if she'd let him? Okay, so he had chickened out. That wasn't important. Either way, the shirt was removed. He had fallen asleep so easily with her warm, only thinly covered tummy pressed into his back and the comforting, insistent weight of her arm over his chest.

He rubs his eyes and sighs. Maka had brought him to see Stein and encouraged Soul to ask their professor for some sleeping pills, which prompted questions about possible reasons for his recent insomnia ("School stress? Family tension? Pressure from combat?") but sitting next to his bright-eyed companion and feeling her left pigtail near his arm shifting as she tilted her head like a dog or something and feeling like he had to blatantly lie made Soul rescind his request as Stein had watched him carefully. He told them that until the team could guarantee that Soul was lucid and well rested enough to fight that there would be a temporary moratorium on battle assignments. He suggested that Soul follow a calming regimen before bedtime and avoid food after seven. He cautioned the expressionless teen to not bring any work or worries into his bed. Maka would bring plenty of both but he still yearned to move her into his territory and sleep under the influence of her comforting nerd pheromones.

He feels like a creep sitting alone in the dark. His problem in his nether regions subsided with the onset of his gloomy ruminating, and with that settled he pads out to the living room and turns on a muted rerun of last week's basketball tournament.

She hears Soul open his door. She cannot tell if he's coming or going. It's quiet after that, but she knows wherever he is, he's still awake. It's been three weeks since their lesson in Hanoi. She could count on one hand the number of times Soul has slept over four hours at night. Maka silently takes stock of her own habits and notes that her sleep has been relatively normal, even for a manically driven and ambitious student. She is averaging about six to seven hours a night, and doubts she could function with less. _How is he operating this way? _

She squashes her pillow into submission and flips over to stare at the picture of Soul and all of her friends taped to her wall. She hasn't seen him look that well rested in so long... It's not that he's unhappy now; he seems to be fine in that respect. (Though heaven help the brave soul who tries to get him out of bed for school; Blair has even begun to make herself and her disproportionately gigantic and unfairly feminine secondary sexual characteristics scarce in the morning.) Soul's pensive meister smirks as the thought appears. _I certainly don't miss that aspect of our morning routine._

He stares vacuously at the screen until a commercial for an ED prescription comes on. Uncool. Soul slouches back down the hallway and stops at his meister's open door when he sees a single beam of light moving slowly up and down. He peers in and notes that his partner resembles Cyclops.

"Maka, what the frick are you wearing?"

"A headlamp."

"Well I can see that but-"

"Then why did you ask?"

"...it was a rhetorical question. Why are you wearing a headlamp?"

The light switches off. With her now only dimly defined shadow stretching on the wall behind her, Maka sits up against the headboard. "Soul...Are you okay?" He nods, and rolls his eyes at his own daftness when he realizes she probably can't see.

After a beat he hears her voice again. "Can you turn on the light?"

He pauses and gives himself the once-over. He's wearing red and black pinstriped boxers and some socks of questionable cleanliness_. It's the same as swim shorts,_ he reasons. _These cover a hell of a lot more than my gym shorts anyway. Actually, I'm more likely to show her something I truly didn't intend to with these on._

"…I'll be right back."

She hears the carpet squishing as he strides to his door, pauses for a moment, and returns. He flicks the light on, showing her his wiry, muscled form in black basketball shorts.

"Yeah I'm all right," he responds truthfully. "Just having a hard time sleeping.

She smiles ruefully. "Same here, unfortunately."

"Can I come in?"

One pale Maka hand reaches under her comforter to adjust her pajama pants, and the other swipes all of the papers and books off the bed onto the floor.

"Sure." She leans back again as he saunters in and sits on her foot.

"Ow!"

The corner of his mouth quirks upward as he massages the outline of her foot and she begins laughing.

"Sorry, but ya really should've moved."

She's suddenly beyond speech as he reaches under her blanket and strokes the sole of her socked foot yet again, sending her into paroxyms of silent laughter. She swears at him, mouthing things he wouldn't expect her to say, but he is unaffected by her death threats as she giggles and writhes all over her bed.

He pulls himself all the way over her. He crawls predatorily until he is eye to eye with her. He hears her heavy breathing. _I did that. _ Maka's heart is pounding under her collared pajama shirt as they stare solemnly into each others eyes. His eyes unfocus a bit as he takes in the headlamp. He grins and slowly looks downward and suddenly she has her voice back when he buries his nose into her stomach and squiggles his fingers all over her tummy.

"Uuuwaaaaaahahaaaagh~"


	7. Baby Carrots?

He has spent the last two hours goofing around with Black Star and waxing the finish on his bike, but as per usual found the homoerotic horseplay growing old quickly. He eventually begged off a pickup game of basketball with the genuine excuse of finding his bookworm, whose giggly, unrefined laugh and big green eyes he was thinking of the entire time. He has started to feel more and more uncomfortable with Black Star's teasing, because he knows it's only partly in jest. Black Star has known Maka longer than he has, and Soul has privately considered that he has a vested interest in hooking them up. Had she confided in him? Black Star and Maka had their tumultuous moments, but it was possible that she had mentioned some…feelings to Tsubaki and his best friend.

Black Star's recommendations are generally illegal or insane in nature, yet he seems to be pushing them (albeit ineptly) together. Soul pushes aside for a moment the possibility that it is _because _Black Star is encouraging them to admit their feelings that it is a bad idea. _No, _he reasons obstinately, _it was my idea first! Besides, Tsubaki thinks we ought to just get whatever it is we are smothering out in the open as well! _Tsubaki , who provides the voice of logic in her partnership with the frequently psychotic ninja, suggested that Soul take Maka to watch a cliff-top sunset, and as such he had assembled a few blankets and some raw vegetables in his seat compartment before he left.

The orange motorcycle is still where he left it. Soul watches it glitter as he presses his nose into the window overlooking the huge courtyard at the top of the stairs to DWMA.

A blunt force in between his shoulder blades sends the rest of him flying into the glass. His heart stops before he convinces himself that he can't fall through the window. He steadies himself and whips around. He nails the tall, lanky bastard with his most impressive glower.

"What the hell are you doing, you old man?"

Spirit smiled. "Watch it. I could have you transferred to Canada."

"Yeah, right. Sure. Totally. Absolutely. You get an A for effort, you mangy loser. There's no way I'd leave Maka."

"…"

Soul stumbles over his words in his head. "I mean, I wouldn't leave anyone. Black Star or Tsubaki or… Nygus… Yeah—"

"Nice save."

"We're boning, by the way."

Spirit's jaw comes unhinged and he begins to spray drool and splutter as Soul strides away, quietly soothing his ruffled cool.

"At least tell Maka to call her papa~!" the desperate man wails wetly down the hallway.

"Whatcha readin'?" Soul slinks out of nowhere.

The slam of the book echoes through the library as Maka pretends not to feel her stinging hand and the hostility of the patrons in surrounding desks. She slides it smoothly into her bag and gazes neutrally at her weapon.

"Eh...book... It's for class."

"Oh yeah?" Soul slouches against a shelf.

"Mhm."

"What class?"

She is starting to look and feel uncomfortable.

"I'd tell you if it was important."

He is behind her chair in two long strides. He rests his chin on her head and puts his arms over her shoulders. He rubs his cheek on her soft hair and she laughs and brings one ash blonde pigtail to her mouth thoughtlessly.

"Soo..." he begins cautiously, eyes closed against the fluorescent lighting. She feels the vibration of his vocal cords as he murmurs into her hair.

"I ran into your dad." _Fucker nearly launched me out a window._

He doesn't need to look to know that her lips are all scrunched up disapprovingly.

"Ah, never mind. So really, what're you reading?" He loves how flustered his meister is getting over that stupid question. She watches helplessly as his hand darts into her bag. He digs for a moment and grasps the bulky volume.

"What."

_Hehe. _

His mind? It's blown, and he is fighting chuckles that could get him chopped in the head.

The cover is border-lining on pornographic, and like Justice John Roberts, Soul knows that shiz when he sees it. He laughs and delicately bonks her on the head with it. When he peeks around to look at her, she's red and—according to his estimation—near tears.

"Oh…Oh. Hey, it's okay." He rubs her shoulder. "I have worse stuff under my mattress."

"…Really?" She wonders if it's appropriate to confirm that sort of thing at this point, but decides that when he poked around in her bag, he gave her a free ticket.

It's his turn to look awkward, and as he nods, he's thankful he hasn't indulged in anything too kinky. She'll probably race him home to look.

One corner of her mouth lifts up as her shame is replaced by mild disgust and curiosity. He sighs inwardly in relief. _All right, disgust. I'll take that. It makes her smile, and I dunno know how long I can stay cool looking at her big watery eyes._

"Really, I do. I'll show you my collection from a few years ago. It's so cool even Black Star wants some, but he can't borrow any because he returned my Victoria's Secret catalogue stained."

She rubs her forehead awkwardly as she realizes that she can now infer more than she ever wanted to about Black Star's preferences. Soul grins at her bemused expression.

"With grape juice, you scandalous thing."

"Oh." She feigns offense, and when her false pout breaks, he is graced with the brightest of Maka smiles. "C'mon Soul, let's go home…Are you making dinner?"

"I wouldn't not be unwilling to not _not_ make you dinner. Fatty….OW. Jesus!

Woman, I hope that hair grows back."

"Not if you keep using my shampoo!"

…_but I love strawberries…"_I'm not gonna go buy some fussy shampoo for myself. Cool guys use whatever they can find."

"Fine. More importantly, who is thinking about my stomach?"

He flushes guiltily, looking up from the carpet. How could she expect him to keep his mind off the translucent blonde baby fuzz on her flat tummy that—

"Dinner."

"Oh."

"What did you think I meant?"

"Actually," he intervenes, regaining control of their repartee; "I wanted to try something different before dinner. If it's okay."

He's stretched out half asleep on the still warm sand, while Maka is loosely sprawled on the blanket, breathing in the dark, rapidly cooling desert air.

"Soul~"

"Urmh?"

"I'm going to be gone for a couple hours tomorrow."

"Where?" he sits up groggily and stretches and cracks his arm joints.

"I have a little date with papa… he wanted to have a reunion of sorts before my mother visits in September…from what I can understand, he wants to try to remarry her. He wants my support to strengthen his case…and I just wonder if it would make my mom happy."

He scowls.

She tilts her head inquisitively.

"You look like a dog when you do that," he deflects bitterly. _She can be so unaware. If it were any couple but her own parents, she would see how stupid that was._

"If there's a problem, say it!"

"I'd rather not."

"Papa said he hadn't seen Blair in months."

"I sincerely doubt that." He is fiddling with a blanket tassel, feeling the tension tightening his neck muscles

"You could always just give him another chance."

"You could always get some common sense and stop giving him more chances to fudge everything up."

"While I'm thrilled for you that you are exempt of the monstrous burden of friendliness, I must carry on interacting on a cordial basis with more people than just YOU. I have friends and—" the end of her sentence is out before her brain connects "– family."

She freezes when any expression he had before slides off his face. He has this conspicuously blank mask that he uses when he's upset, and she'd be a fucking liar if she said that expression didn't make her feel nauseous with guilt every time. She battles the urge to jam her booted foot into her mouth.

"Soul…It's..."

She wants to blurt out the goddamned truth. She probably subconsciously only wanted a reaction. She wanted him to be jealous. If she could say 'Forget the family thing, I didn't mean to hurt you and I wasn't actually thinking about your horrible parents, I just wanted you to think you had emotional competition so that maybe you would give me a freakin' clue about whether or not I am wasting my time trying to get you to tell me how you feel and maybe I want to see my father and ask him if I'm right and if it's okay but I don't know if he's the right one to ask because I KNOW he's a lying bastard and I KNOW you're right so just shut up.'

When she looks at him she realizes that she did say all that.

He smiles in spite of himself, but sobers when her expression doesn't change. "Hey. I don't expect you to drop every relationship you have. I do, however, expect you to be more observant than a friggin' sack of artichokes. I might avoid my own, but I _am _familiar with the dynamics of dysfunctional families."

She growls in spite of her private agreement with his words. "What do you mean?"

He shifts his weight to his elbows and sighs. To his dismay, his carefully weighed answer comes somewhat disjointedly; "I—was… I don't believe him. I don't understand his motives for trying to reestablish a relationship with you." _And_ _I know you need guidance in more than one way, but please don't ask that ass-hat._ "He's still seeing Blair, and I swear I have no clue why he would want both of them at the same time, but that's what happening."

There is quiet for a few minutes in which the crickets creaking like rusted door hinges fill the gap of their conversation.

Both of them take for granted that Soul is being as brutally honest as his current knowledge allows, and as such she cannot argue the point.

Soul gets up and begins to collect the veggies and little plates, but a small, tan hand on his arm gives him pause. "Just sit."

He drops awkwardly to his back again and stretches out his legs. She flops backward into his lap and stares up at his face.

It's funny, but he thinks he started to get hard before she even landed. Damn. Fortunately it's sort of shoved into a crease of his jeans so it's not, like, probing her ear. The distinct image of that, however, comes to mind. He starts to laugh before he can stifle it, and as she gazes impassively up at the sky, she doesn't really care what he is snickering about. She does notice that his boner is poking her neck though.

She rolls her eyes and sighs inwardly. Since moving in with this tall, soft skinned, spiky haired, puppy-eyed cool guy she has waved off his frequent, highly noticeable arousal as a function of being male. In a sense, she is correct. (That is, she is only correct if exercising in tiny shorts and walking around before bedtime with sleepy eyes and cute pajamas is a function of being female. Which it is not.)

Soul is intimately familiar with every curve of her body with the exception of her modestly proportioned chest. She's always been so careful about that. _Yet I've memorized every pair of panties she owns? _He doesn't honestly think they're tiny. _Tsubaki is generously endowed, but even comparatively, Maka is not too small. _All he really did was pick up on insecurity and use it as a berserk button. _Ahem. Sounds worse when it's phrased like that._

She tugs his wrist over her body so that she can hold his hand without moving her other arm, and when she stops shifting him, he finds something pliant and rounded tucked into the inside of his elbow. _Did she hear me thinking about her boobs?_ He flushes immediately and, grateful for the sun's descent, turns his face out toward the windy canyon like he is the kind of cool guy who uses girls' chests as arm rests on a regular basis. Ain't no big thang. _Cool and casual at all times._ _S-s-such as now. With… her... aaahaaha. _

When she hears him wheezing like Darth Vader, she shifts her stare to his glowing face and sees his eyes flickering slightly under closed lids.

His eyes pop open when she pats his hand sleepily_. It's okay. I love you but you're weird_. _I'm tired. _

"Where did all your syllables go, bookworm?"

_Shaddup. _She squirms around and yawns into the inside of his leg. "C-can we stay here?"

Her breath is warm through his jeans, and her voice whispery and soft. Her proposal sounds like a cool idea, to his surprise. He knows she isn't asking permission; their relationship isn't one of imbalanced power. She is just testing to see if it would bother him. It really doesn't. They have blankets and—until Monday— no one to answer to but themselves.

* * *

Non-story material: I do not want to write anything smutty because I'm not sure how. I'm sort of having difficulty with that because I don't want it to suck. (Hehe no pun intended) I'm not done, but I'm definitely stuck. ...that's what she said..dammit.. I need to stop. Happy trails.

Thanks for playing~


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